[Leica] Re: Advice needed

[leica at ralgo.nl (leica)]

With the price of storage so low now (high quality 1TB. disks at ?  
$115), that is the best route to go, either in mirrored (RAID 1) or  
with multiple disks in RAID 5. For those worried about theft, fire or  
water incursions, what about an old safe of 200/300 Kgs. Leave the  
system inside, and just disconnect the cables when exiting the premises.

Concerning the software, I would consider Lightroom, as has been said  
by others and i-View (http://www.iview-multimedia.com/). Being run by  
two of the industry's largest companies, Adobe and now Microsoft,    
longevity and continuance should be relatively assured.

The biggest problem facing many is the cataloguing. Preparing a  
suitable list of search terms is vital. And. I guess, the ideal way  
is record, as you say, where and when. Some of the DSLRs have, I  
understand, a brief recording mode .......... or a small digital  
voice recorder.

Success,
Bruce.


On 19-feb-2009, at 18:44, Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:

> Advice needed!
>
> I am in the middle of the process of digitizing 60 years of  
> personal pictures. So far I have digitized about 20,000 negatives  
> and slides, stored as JPEGs, into 100 GB of disc storage. It has  
> taken over a year of sporadic work and has worn our one high end  
> scanner, a Minolta DiMage 5400. Using ICE, each image takes about 6  
> minutes to digitize. My wife is collecting the best prints to put  
> in albums.
>
> Here are my questions:
>
> 1. What is the best way to store the digital files. I estimate that  
> by the time I finish, I will have 200 GB, maybe much more. I  
> started using CDs until I saw how many I was collecting, migrated  
> to DVDs, and now am simply using hard discs.
>
> 2. Based on information from Apple, I created iPhoto Libraries to  
> keep track of the images. Apple maintains that iPhoto can handle  
> 250,000 images. That seems a lot. Has anyone tried stuffing that  
> many images into an iPhoto library? Are there any good  
> alternatives? Remember, these are not professional photographs and  
> the program will have to be used for viewing images as well as  
> cataloging them.
>
> 3. What do you do with the scanned negatives and slides? Bury them?  
> Store them in archival sheets? It is improbable that the negatives  
> will ever be needed again, but there is always the chance. I  
> suspect that the digital files will last longer than the original  
> color film images since I noted considerable deterioration in the  
> older Ektachrome and Fujichrome slides.
>
> I learned three things during the scanning process:
>
> 1. Edit before you scan. It is amazing how many duplicates or near  
> duplicate images are in the collection. Cutting a roll of 36  
> exposures down to the best 10 or so saves two hours of scanning  
> time per roll.
>
> 2. Don't scan everything at the highest resolution. A lot of  
> personal pictures, while interesting, will never justify enlarging  
> beyond 4" x 6". High resolution scanning takes at least twice as long.
>
> 3. Keep careful records of each set of images, preferably when the  
> pictures were first taken. The only way I could date some files was  
> by estimating the age of my children shown in the pictures. I  
> probably was off by two or three years. If you travel a lot,  
> locations are hard to remember too.
>
> Help.
>
> Larry Z
>
>
>
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